JERUSALEM, May 26 (NNN-MA’AN) – Israel’s GDP contracted by annualised 7.1 percent, in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, according to a report released by the state’s Central Bureau of Statistics on Monday.
This decline, sharpest in the last 20 years, is mainly due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, a sharp decrease in passenger car imports intensified the GDP sharp fall.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday pledged to annex parts of the occupied West Bank in the coming months, vowing to move ahead with the explosive plan despite a growing chorus of condemnations by key allies.
The Palestinians, with wide international backing, seek the entire West Bank as the heartland of a future independent state. Annexing large chunks of this territory would all but destroy the faint remaining hopes of a two-state solution.
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s medical union on Monday blamed the government for increasing levels of coronavirus infections and deaths among healthcare professionals, its sharpest criticism yet of the country’s handling of the pandemic.
Citing growing frustration over a lack of protective equipment, testing and hospital beds for front-line doctors, the union described the Egyptian health ministry’s negligence as “a crime of killing by irresponsibility.”
TARTUS / Syria /, May 25. / TASS /: Russian and Syrian military have conducted a joint exercise to protect the port of Tartus, where a Russian naval base is located, against a group of saboteurs, the head of the naval station, Vyacheslav Rodionov, told Russian journalists.
He said that the joint tactical exercise involved "the naval forces of the Syrian Arab Republic and the Russian Navy. "All aims of the scheduled exercise were achieved," Rodionov said, stressing that the naval forces of the two countries "are ready to protect and defend the Tartus naval base".
25 May 2020; MEMO: Media outlets in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt have launched a systematic campaign against Rached Ghannouchi, the intellectual leader of Tunisia’s Ennahda Movement, to tarnish his image and provoke a storm in his country, Anadolu Agency reports.
The counter-revolution led by Sky News, Saudi-financed Al-Arabiya — both broadcasts from the UAE — and Egypt-based Youm7 newspaper, have published simultaneous deceitful news.
25 May 2020; MEMO: Iran on Sunday confirmed 58 more fatalities from coronavirus over the past 24 hours, bringing the nationwide death toll to 7,417, Anadolu Agency reports.
A further 2,180 people tested positive for COVID-19, raising the overall count to 135,701, said the Health Ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour.
He said 105,801 patients have recovered and been discharged from hospitals so far, while 2,615 patients remain in critical condition.
25 May 2020; MEMO: Iran ignored warnings of retaliation from the US as the first of five Iranian tankers entered Venezuela’s exclusive economic zone on Saturday.
The tanker, named Fortune, reached the Venezuela’s territorial waters at around 7:40 pm after passing north of Trinidad and Tobago in the Carribean, according to vessel-tracking data.
25 May 2020; MEMO: Saudi Arabia’s finance minister Mohammed al Jadaan said on Sunday that the kingdom’s economy is solid and has the ability to deal with the coronavirus crisis despite the need to cut spending, Reuters reports.
“The Saudi economy is able to absorb the decline in revenues and to deal with budget deficit,” he said in a statement published by the state news agency.
TEHRAN, May 24 (NNN-IRNA) — Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan following a telephone discussion on Sunday, have called for air and land borders of the two neighboring countries to be reopened to resume trade ties and sharing experience on fighting coronavirus.
Referring to the problems that coronavirus outbreak has brought about for the economy of the world, the two presidents stressed that the borders of Iran and Turkey should reopen to resume trade.
DUBAI, May 24 (Xinhua) -- Sheikh Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, supreme council member and ruler of Sharjah, has ordered the release of 108 prisoners, according to the official WAM news agency on Sunday.
The clemency was granted to prisoners from punitive and reformative institutions in Sharjah, the third largest city in the United Arab Emirates, on occasion of Eid al-Fitr.
Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan.
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